All A Matter of How Far
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: It depends, he tells her. Some people just go farther than others, and before they know it, it's too late to turn back.


**A/N: My muse is officially on a one-shot marathon. This one can count as a post-ep to 'Stocks and Bondage' if you look hard enough. For those of you who haven't yet caught up on all the SVU eps, it's the 9th ep of season one. **

* * *

"You've never actually thought about it, have you?" she asks, and he looks at her, startled.

"Thought about what?" he asks in reply, and she motions to all the paperwork between their desks.

"What these people were into," she says. "You know, the stuff Munch and Cassidy were giving you hell about earlier on?"

"Oh, that." He pauses and shakes his head. "No. I haven't. And I'm not going to. Doesn't make any sense to me."

"It's got to make sense on some level. You can't say you've never seen a case like this before." She leans back in her seat and goes on. "You're the squad veteran, aren't you?"

"Munch is older than me," he says. She pushes his foot under their desks.

"Yeah, but he was Homicide. You've been SVU the longest out of our little quartet," she says. "You ever seen something like this?"

"No, but then, high finance has never interested me," he says, mock-seriously. She rolls her eyes at him.

"That's not what I meant," she tells him. "I meant you've seen this sort of thing go wrong accidentally-on-purpose before, haven't you?"

"I prefer not to think about it, but yes, I have." He leans back in his seat, and looks at his partner for a long moment before going on. "Not something one sees every day."

She shakes her head. "I can see why not. People would want to keep something like that hidden from everyone else."

"Yeah, they would. Not something people like to have out there in the open. Kind of a secret society, if you will."

"You know, I'd ask how you seem to know so much about it if you've never thought about it, but considering you're the veteran here, I'll leave it at that."

"I don't get how people can even remotely find that attractive, you know? Hurting someone else just for their own pleasure?" Now that the conversation has begun, he isn't going to let it drop, because he's started thinking, and he's not exactly sure that's a good thing.

"You can't tell me you've never gotten into a fight just because you wanted to," she says, but he shakes his head at her.

"Sure I have, but it's different. I mean, it's supposed to be a normal part of a relationship, being intimate with your significant other, and then we have this lot, who think it's normal to go around hurting each other like that…I don't get it."

"To each his or her own," she says, and he shakes his head again, smirking in her direction.

"You're awful," he tells her. "I agree with you, but you're still awful. To think that those two idiots got so far in that they killed someone."

"Well, you know what they say. High finance is one of those cutthroat careers. You make one mistake and you're gone." She twirls her pen between her fingers and goes on. "Kinda like our job."

"Only, if we make a mistake, we can usually end up correcting it at one point or another," he points out. "You know, I think I might just have something to poke at my brother with."

"Now that's awful," she tells him. "Honestly, Stabler, what kind of guy are you, really?"

"One that has no issues with giving his older siblings hell," comes the reply. "I was just kidding, anyway. He'd probably look at me like I've grown another head."

"Well, so would I, if I were him," she says, and then, "You know, I really hope Amy's face clears up. She didn't deserve what that jerk did to her."

"And that non-profit guy didn't deserve to die, and neither did our original victim, but they both did," he says. "A lot of people don't deserve what comes to them."

"And a lot of people get caught up in things where they have no idea what's going to happen to them." She takes a sip from the coffee mug that's been sitting on her desk and makes a face. "That's disgusting."

"Munch probably made it," he remarks, and she shakes her head.

"Nah, it's just cold," she replies. "You know, I was into some weird stuff back when I was a kid, but nothing like that."

"When you were a kid," he says, and bites his lip to keep from laughing at her. "You mean when you were that age a few years ago?"

"Oh, shut up. You know what I mean. I did stupid things, but I never did anything like that. I'd heard of it, but it never made any sense to me, either."

"You trying to say that you experimented?"

"Oh, come off it, what kid doesn't?"

"I didn't. Never really had the time, not that I would have, but there you have it. I think some things are better left alone."

"And some lessons are better learned the hard way, right?" She gives him a skeptical look when he shrugs, as if to say that she's hit the nail on the head, and goes on. "You know, somehow I don't think that's the way it should be."

"Not all of life's lessons are easy."

"True, but who wants to learn not to get into something when they're dying from it?"

A valid question, and he knows it. There are plenty of other ways that their first victim could have learned a lesson about getting involved too soon and too quickly, but the chance has already passed.

"Life's got a nasty little habit of teaching us a lesson when we least expect it," he remarks finally. "Like when you're about to leave it because someone's pushing you too far."

"Do you think anyone ever does it on purpose?" she asks. "Like, really, honestly on purpose?"

He shakes his head. "Not usually," he admits. "In this case, yeah, because it's basically what we found out when we nailed the guys who did it, but…you know, it's all a matter of how far you want to go."

"Like I said, you know an awful lot about this sort of thing for having never thought about it."

"Just because I don't think about doing it myself doesn't mean I don't think about what could possibly be running through someone else's head while they're doing it."

"You're a complicated man, Stabler."

"You're a bit slow there, Benson. I've been told that a million times over already."

She pushes his foot behind the desk. "So, all a matter of how far you want to go, huh?"

"Yeah. All a matter of how far you want to go." He trails off for a moment, and then goes on. "But then, from what I've seen over the past few years, most people stop before it goes too far."


End file.
